NOTHING MUCH
As soon as breakfast was finished we were out the door. We grabbed the nets and jam- jars on the way through the garage, and with a shrill 'yes' in reply to Mum's shout of 'be back in time for lunch', we were gone.
Running through the wet meadow down to the pond, our wellingtons suddenly become clean and shiny without us doing anything. There are buttercups in the grass and dandelion clocks that we scuff with our feet to scatter the fluffy seeds into the air, though they mostly seem to stick to our glistening wellies.
Beneath the horse chestnuts, still without conkers, the air is cold in the shade and we run on, knee-deep in nettles that do not sting if you run fast enough.
At last the pond, and ankle-deep in mud we throw down the nets and jamjars and look around. We have seen a blue heron here once, a long-legged, long-billed fellow, spearing the same little fish that we are here to catch. A kingfisher too. Today though, we're happy to see the tiddlers in the shallow water, and at last the tadpoles.
"Polliwogs, Dick, over here."
And by the time the mud has settled and the water stilled, the tadpoles have gone but settling down on our haunches they are soon back, easily swept up in our nets. Last week they were not hatched but now our jamjars, string knotted around their necks, are full with water and tadpoles swimming blindly. We set them down crookedly on a tree root, pick out the slime and weed from the bottom of our nets and go looking for bigger things.
The tiddlers scatter as our shadows cross them, but with our nets below the waterline they are soon caught. An old red beach bucket with no handle, left here from before, becomes their new home and as the sun warms the air swarms of midges move this way and that, in and out of the shadows.
Small pond snails join the tiddlers as we empty our nets and slithery green pond weed eels through our hands.
"It's like school dinner," I yell, throwing a long strand at Kevin.
Soon we're throwing the thin mud and slime at one another, jumping up and down, splashing water everywhere, our shorts soaked and our boots full of mud. I rush to climb a tree, scampering up into the leaves and perched high above my brother I pelt him with oak apples. He returns fire with sticks but I’m safe, the leaves and branches shielding me. Before long Kevin tires of the game and is gone from sight, and the silence of the pond stills me until I discover a spider has been crawling in my hair, unnoticed in the excitement. Just then a cry of "Stickleback!" comes through the air and I’m down out of the tree racing along the edge of the pond to the reeds where net in hand Kevin is hunting.
Stickleback's are fast, but it's cornered between the bank and the reeds. Kevin pounces, sweeping through the water with his net, lifting it high with a shout, but when we look his net is empty and the stickleback invisible in the stirred up mud or more likely long gone into the reeds.
An old Tizer bottle is sticking up through the mud and it becomes a target, but moving targets are more fun and as some of the small branches we've thrown at the bottle float out into clear water, they become battleships and the artillery opens up. Sticks and stones pour down creating a roiling sea but the ships remain afloat, pushed out of range and now the game is to throw really hard beyond the sticks and make them float back into range but we have no luck.
We wander around to the other side of the pond where the water is still, and where all kinds of rubbish seems to gather. There are old faded and moldy magazines, a bent bicycle wheel, a car tyre and a new arrival, an old rusted gas stove lying on its side. There is something so still and lonely, silent and damaged about this spot that we come here not to play but to feel strangeness.
The midges are heavy here and soon we're scratching and splashing around the edge of the pond to clearer water. This is where we saw the heron. We are very quiet but all we see is a dead fish floating upside down. I wade into the water until it flows over my wellingtons, filling them, and poke at the rotting fish, steering it back to the bank. In one swift movement I scoop it out of the water and it flies past Kevin's head as he recoils in disgust. He chases me with swear words, bloodies and buggers, back to the jamjars. One has fallen over, and the tadpoles have escaped.
We head home for lunch but as we come out into the sunlight of the meadow Kevin suddenly stops and exclaims "The tiddlers!" and we rush back to the pond and the red beach bucket and free the tiny fish into the water.
Soon we're home and ready for lunch. Mum, as usual, says "Wash your hands before you sit at the table," and then asks what we've been doing all morning, and with our mouths stuffed full of baked beans and toast, Kevin and me say together "Nothing much."
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